Ed Tant

Ed Tant is an American writer, journalist, and activist. He was a long-time columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald and is currently a columnist for Flagpole Magazine.

Life and career

He attended the University of West Georgia and was involved in student activism there.^[1]

Tant has written for publications including the Athens Banner-Herald,^[2] Flagpole Magazine,^[3] Astronomy,^[4] and The Atlanta Constitution.^[5] He has been a nominee for the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.^[6] In 2009, Tant contributed photographs to an exhibition at the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art about the role of media.^[7]

He worked as a security guard at the Georgia Museum of Art for seventeen years.^[8][9][10] The New York Times has published letters by Tant about his experience as a museum guard.^[11][12] In 2014, a couple donated a piece of art to the museum in honor of Tant.^[13]

Tant participated in protests against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and in protests against the Iraq War in the early 2000s.^[14][15] He has been a volunteer at the Athens Human Rights Festival, whose guests have included David Dellinger and Lawrence Colburn.^[16][17]

He was arrested in New York while covering protests around the 2004 Republican National Convention as a columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald.^[18][19] The arrest of demonstrators and bystanders, including Tant, led to a successful class action lawsuit for false arrests.^[14]